That's the advice my father might have given me if my father gave any advice which he never did.
Keep your eyes and ears open.
So I developed that idea myself and came to realise that by keeping one's eyes and ears open there was no telling what one might see and hear.
My sit com entitled Four Men In A Sauna has been watered down somewhat. It started under that name and then became two men in a sauna and then a man and a lady in a sauna and yesterday it became one man in a sauna.
But the things you find out about somebody just by talking to them. One man in a sauna is a very chatty cove. He effortlessly strikes up a conversation. I told him about not going to see Norwich play on Wednesday night because I didn't want to get sopping wet. I hoped he might be a football fan, willing to discuss the fortunes of the Canaries.
He wasn't
But being a jovial, talkative type, he recounted his memories of the two times he had been to Carrow Road before he realised he really didn't like football. He went with his father and a brother and they stood in what is still known as the River End, so called because it's the side of the ground close to the River Wensum.
My earliest memories of the River End was you entered it through a car park and through the back of the terrace. There were no seats and it wasn't very big. A misdirected shot would go over the top of the terrace and into the car park. I reckon you could just about make the river if you really tried.
I never stood in the River End myself as the South Stand was my place of choice. Anyway man in the sauna remembered the days when 50,000 crammed into the ground. This wasn't quite correct because the ground's record attendance is 43,984 against Leicester in an FA Cup game in 1963. I'm not sure if I was at that game but I suspect not. I do remember my father taking me to a game where we couldn't get in because it was full. Sounds as if it might have been that one. I think it was the only time he took me to a football match. We went to a James Bond movie instead. I've hated James Bond movies ever since.
Those were the days long before health and safety where the terraces had metal poles at various places which you could lean against but which could cause serious injury if the crowd surged forward from above as it often seemed to do.
But back to the surprise chat in the sauna. One man in the sauna mentioned that both his father and brother had been Lord Mayor's of Norwich.
I asked their names and of course looked them up on the internet when I got home and here's what I discovered.
Alan R Driver was born in Norfolk and lived in Robin Hood Road in Norwich. He had four sons with wife Joy. He moved to Norwich in 1953 after serving in the Royal Marines in the Second World War . His career included working as a theatre porter at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, care assistant at Bishop Herbert House, and a bar assistant at the Norwich Labour Club. A councillor from 1957, he represented Town Close Ward and Lakenham Ward, and served as a councillor on many committees for more than 28 years.
He was Assistant Steward at the Norwich Labour Party from 1974 until his retirement in September 1990. He served as Deputy Lord Mayor in 1979 and went on to serve as Lord Mayor from 1981 to 1982. He was Vice-President of the joint Norwich Labour Party and Trades Council; a governor of the Eaton (CNS) School; Vice-Chairman of the Cavell School, Norwich; Director of the Norwich Co-Operative Society; Secretary of the Harford branch of the Norfolk and Norwich Pensioners' Association; and Archivist and Welfare Officer for the local Royal Naval Association.
You could say he had a busy life of service. But that wasn't the end of the Driver family and Norwich politics. Alan's son Keith was Lord Mayor in 2013. It was the first time in over 100 years that a father and then a son had served as Lord Mayor. Both were dyed in the wool Labour party supporters.
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Had an interesting evening at Hethersett Library yesterday. Firstly we had a meeting of the Friends Group to sort out dates for presentations next year and a quiz that we are organising on October 28th and a children's party in the new pavilion on the Memorial Playing Field on December 2nd. I will have further details of these in a coming blog.